Indonesia and Australia to redouble effort on asylum seekers

Australian and Indonesian security ministers will meet in Jakarta on Monday in an effort to find further ways to stem the flow of asylum seeker boats.

Home Affairs Minister
Jason Clare
, Defence Minister
Stephen Smith
and Transport Minister
Anthony Albanese
are expected to take part in the talks with their Indonesian counterparts. The talks follow an agreement between Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
in July to look at further ways to curb the influx.

Ms Gillard also offered to provide more technical and personnel assistance to Indonesia’s under-resourced search and rescue agencies including upgrading wireless networks to enable authorities to better communicate with merchant vessels.

The development comes as Prime Minister Gillard on Friday defended Indonesia’s handling of the latest asylum boat disaster.

“I believe the Indonesian authorities did the best they could,’’ Ms Gillard told reporters in Canberra on Friday.

Indonesian search and rescue authorities were criticised after calling off a search after just a few hours on Wednesday, after failing to find any trace of an asylum seeker boat in distress in the Sunda Strait near Java.

But the boat was later detected by a merchant ship and a massive search operation resumed.

So far 54 people have been rescued but fears are held for a further 90.